A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray)

by Oscar de Muriel

  Just before Miss Terry vanished, McGray caught her by the arm.

  ‘We’ll be back tonight to finish our wee chat. D’ye understand? And don’t ye dare disappear on us like Irving.’

  Miss Terry turned to me as if looking for help, but she found none.

  ‘Your soirée tonight will be a perfect time,’ I said. ‘I will take your invitation after all.’

  Fuming, Miss Terry pulled her arm away and slammed the door.

  Stoker stopped us just as we were turning on our heels. His cheeks were flushed, almost as bright as his ginger hair and beard.

  ‘Inspector McGray … I happened to hear that you will be joining us at the ball?’

  Nine-Nails grimaced at the question. ‘Aye, why?’

  Stoker bit his lips, and moved the tip of his shoe as if struggling to crush a bug on the carpet. ‘Erm, please don’t misinterpret this question, but … Do you … do you own a black suit?’

  He was looking straight at McGray’s gaudy tartan trousers.

  ‘What made ye think I don’t?’ he said after a loud cackle.

  Stoker’s cheeks blushed even more.

  I laughed too. ‘Mr Stoker, I can assure you that this shabby Scot owns no decent pair of trousers.’

  Stoker checked his pocket watch. His embarrassment had instantly turned into anxiety.

  ‘Inspector, if you don’t mind, please allow me to lend you one of my suits. We seem to wear the same size. And we may be able to do something about your stubble as well.’

  ‘Och, sod off. I’ll just wear this!’

  Stoker might as well have made the sign of the cross. ‘Inspector – quite frankly, I’d rather you quit the case.’

  ‘Should I see you back here tonight?’ I asked McGray as I made my way out. Nine-Nails did not seem to hear me, though. He was lighting a cigarette, looking pensive, and I had to pat his shoulder with the back of my hand. ‘Is something bothering you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I think we might have another sighting tonight.’ As he spoke he produced the crumpled piece of paper where he’d scribbled the banshee’s prophecies. ‘On the night the blood runs thick and freely / Some fiend here comes, replete with too much rage …’

  I brought a hand to my frustrated forehead.

  ‘Are you not reading too much between the lines?’

  ‘Perhaps, but I want to be near, just in case. I’ll stay around.’ He looked sternly at me. ‘And ye better bring some officers. That’s an order, dandy.’

  ‘And a very stupid one,’ I added, leaving him behind.

  Even if he had not wanted officers fetched, I still needed to go back to the City Chambers, since my mare was still there.

  As soon as I arrived McNair came to me, looking jubilant.

  ‘Inspector Frey, we have news!’

  ‘News?’

  ‘Aye, about the butchers.’

  I nearly gasped. After all the ordeals of the day I’d completely forgotten that errand. I recognized a couple of those sleazy reporters snooping around, so I took McNair to the Dumping Ground.

  ‘We went to every butcher in town,’ he said as he closed the door behind us. ‘They all told us the same story: no blood was sold on the day the banshee appeared under the bridge.’

  I blinked in confusion. ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Right. They’re sure. Not a wee drop.’

  ‘How can they be so certain?’

  ‘They told us that too, sir. It wisnae market day.’

  ‘Cattle market, you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said McNair. ‘Most o’ the slaughtering is done on market day, or the day after. The chaps at the abattoir had done their last slaughtering on the sixth.’

  ‘So three days earlier.’

  ‘Aye, so there was nae blood to be sold; apparently the stuff goes bad very quickly, especially in summertime – they have to cook it very soon.’

  I went to McGray’s chair, sat back and pressed my fingertips together. ‘That makes an awful lot of sense … but …’ I thought of Susy and the prophecy, and then a disturbing thought came to me. ‘By any chance did they tell you when the next market day will be?’

  ‘Aye, but it already was, Inspector.’

  ‘Please, do not tell me that it was –’

  ‘Aye, sir. Today. All the slaughtering has been done and the blood’s been sold; most of it gone in the early morning.’

  I covered my brow, grunting. When I looked up I saw that the young constable was as worried as I.

  ‘Were there any unusual customers? Strangers?’

  ‘Aye, but they said that’s quite normal these days. The city has grown quite a bit.’

  ‘That is not good enough, McNair. We need to know exactly what was sold and to whom.’ Butchers, like most tradesmen, lived above their premises, so I thought we could send some of the officers to ask around. The dwellers would not be happy, but this was a police affair.

  ‘And we also need some of the chaps to mount guard at the Palace Hotel,’ I told him.

  ‘Really, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said wearily, my eyes slowly moving towards a large formaldehyde jar which contained a thick, repugnant snake coiled on itself. ‘If Nine-Nails is right – and gosh, now I think he is – we might have another sighting tonight.’

  26

  As I arrived in Great King Street I saw there were two large carriages parked in front of the house. One was a wide landau, with a foldable roof that, in view of the impending weather, had been set up. The other was a simple cab, but instead of carrying passengers, its whole interior was crammed with chests and cases of all shapes and sizes. Two men were busy unloading them and taking them into the house.

  ‘And so it begins,’ I sighed.

  By then the light drizzle had become a proper storm. It was as though Edinburgh itself was having an allergic reaction to the Frey family.

  I stepped into the corridor and dodged piles of luggage, but still saw that the house had been thoroughly cleaned. There were no traces of wine on the carpets, or shattered vases, or ladies’ forgotten shoes. And I was impressed by the smell too: the stench of cheap tobacco had been completely replaced by rose and bergamot.

  Just as I thought so I met Joan, who was bringing a tray brimming with tea, pastries and my best decanter full of brandy.

  ‘Master,’ she said before I could compliment her efforts, ‘your visitors have –’

  ‘Why, there you are!’ cried the familiar voice of Catherine Frey, née White, my less than beloved stepmother, coming into the corridor.

  Not yet thirty-nine, so scarcely seven years older than me, she carried her age outstandingly well, which I hate to admit (then again, when your only mission in life is to be a rich man’s decoration …). She still had an elegant hourglass figure, a long neck slightly titled backwards, and only mere traces of wrinkles on the sides of her mouth. She had the bright blonde hair and blue eyes she’d passed on to Elgie and Oliver, but unlike my youngest brother, her face never showed the slightest trace of humour.

  ‘Ian,’ she said, looking at Joan with her eternally haughty manner, ‘this good woman claims to have worked for you the best part of eight years, yet I have never seen her in my life.’

  ‘Good evening to you too, Catherine,’ I said. ‘Joan kept my rented lodgings at Suffolk Street, back in London.’ My golden days, I thought.

  ‘Why, that explains it! Your father told me never to venture into such a dreadfully dangerous area.’

  My stepmother had the talent of stressing just the right words to set my father’s temper on fire, and tonight it would work as effectively as ever. He came from the main parlour, armed with a fat glass of spirit that was nearly empty.

  ‘At least you managed to get a place that is not in the middle of a rat-infested slum,’ he said reprovingly.

  I’d not seen my father in six months, and in that relatively short period of time he’d done an excellent job at expanding his waistline. The buttons on his shirt were dangerously outstretc
hed, and I feared one of them would soon eject like a bullet. He seemed to be ageing faster these days, the wrinkles becoming deeper, and blotches appearing on his skin as suddenly as blossoms in spring. Twenty-seven years older than his second wife, the old Mr Frey no longer looked like her father, but rather her grandfather.

  He snatched the decanter from Joan’s tray and went back to the main drawing room, where Elgie sat, looking rather tense. This was the very room where I’d found him fiddling and drinking and partying the day before; tonight, however, with the immaculate rug, the puffed-up cushions and the fresh flowers on the mantelpiece, the place could not have looked more different.

  I was about to comment on how I liked the room, but Catherine spoke first.

  ‘We did not know where to sit, Ian. This room is awfully draughty, and the only thing worse than the shabby décor is that all the windows face southwards; I would tan and freckle like a field hand if I had to spend all my afternoons here. Thank God the Scottish weather is ghastly.’

  ‘So, Father,’ I said, turning to him, ‘how long are you planning to stay?’

  At least the food was no matter of complaint.

  Joan and Layton had prepared some delicious beef fillets, and even my fussy stepmother enjoyed them with unprecedented gusto.

  I thought the conversation would be terribly dry, but Catherine turned out to be a bottomless fountain of theatre gossip. She could recite everything there was to know about every liaison, adultery and love affair involving every actor and diva the United Kingdom has ever seen. It made me realize how little attention I’d paid to anything she had said in the last twenty years or so.

  Ellen Terry, I soon realized, seemed to be her pet hate.

  ‘Oh dear, it would take me half the night just to go through the names of her lovers!’

  ‘Then don’t,’ Father grumbled, but went unnoticed. Catherine began the very long list.

  ‘George Frederic Watts, for instance. They married when she was sixteen and he was in his forties!’

  A rather hypocritical remark, I thought, since Catherine herself had been sixteen when she married my father, who was forty-three at the time.

  ‘The marriage didn’t last a whole year,’ she went on, ‘but people whisper that he paid her a pension for the next twelve years, even though she was already having sordid affairs with Charles Reade, Tom Taylor, Lewis Carroll, Edward Godwin … Oh, the scandal with the wicked Earl Godwin! They lived together, never had any intentions to marry and thus produced two illegitimate brats. I heard Godwin built her a dream house, but it was so lavish he had to mortgage the property and run away from his creditors. By this point Miss Terry left him – what use was a penniless man to her? – and I believe he died not long ago, still calling for her, some papers claimed.

  ‘Then she married Charles Wardell, but he eventually lost his mind. The poor man also died, I believe three or four years ago – alcoholism! It was in every paper.’

  Catherine only stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Even Joan was not capable of such incisive gossip.

  ‘And in between all those men,’ Catherine resumed, ‘she has always been Irving’s little toy – not that his wife is that innocent; I heard people have seen her on the arm of a pauper-looking scarecrow,’ she laughed. ‘Oh well, Irving is not doing much better himself. Honestly, how can anyone think Ellen Terry is a beauty? With that jaw and that nose – she looks like a Trojan mare. And so old these days! Forty-two and still playing the little dove on the stage! In a couple of years she will be playing Juliet with a walking stick.’

  I had to bite my lip not to remark that Catherine was only three years younger.

  ‘Will you tell her so at tonight’s soirée?’ Father asked. I had told them about the invitation, which was not received quite as I expected: Father complained about not having a chance to catch his breath, and Catherine moaned about not having her best frock ready for the night. She could not bring up the subject enough times.

  ‘I would have loved to have the chance to parade my green silk dress in front of that tasteless woman. If only we’d known with a little advance.’ She sighed deeply. ‘At least I can save it for the premiere night. Laurence managed to get us the most wonderful seats available. A raised box! And at the perfect distance from Oscar Wilde’s: close enough to see what he is up to, but not so much so that he might spill champagne on my frock.’ Catherine stretched a hand to pat mine. ‘Oh, Ian, it is a shame you shan’t be with us, but good that Laurence had the tact to avoid you meeting Eugenia –’

  ‘Don’t overdo it, Catherine,’ Father grunted.

  Catherine usually submitted if my father protested, but this time she would not have it.

  ‘My dear, I do not know why every time I mention the name of the poor girl I seem to get a good scolding …’

  ‘You know perfectly,’ Father said gravely. ‘You know what I think of the situation, yet you prattle about it day and night. Don’t you remember our Christmas?’

  I wish I could have jumped across the table and hugged my slightly inebriated father. After Eugenia had ended our engagement, the old Mr Frey had, against my wildest predictions, supported me fully. He’d even thrown Laurence and Eugenia out of my uncle’s house on Christmas Day, and he’d forever refer to my former sweetheart as the trollop.

  ‘I am still bloody mad at the pair of them,’ Father went on. ‘If I am joining you it is only because I want to see what my youngest son has been doing in this bloody dump of a city all these months. But don’t expect me to be all smiles and chatter.’

  Father gulped down the rest of his wine and then a tense silence fell on the table.

  Elgie speedily tried to change the subject. ‘I was thinking we could go to the new Scottish Portrait Gallery. It will open next week and it is a very impressive building.’

  ‘A Scottish Portrait Gallery!’ our father cried with contempt, sending breadcrumbs all across the table. ‘To see what? Scottish faces? I can see those from your brother’s bloody south-facing window.’

  ‘There, there,’ said Catherine, her taming powers on my father unequalled. ‘Elgie is just trying to make your stay a little more bearable. Thank goodness Oliver is not here.’

  Somehow, only then did I realize that the elder of my half-brothers was not around.

  ‘Where is he?’ I felt quite guilty for asking that so late, but Oliver’s contribution to the conversation would have been the same whether he was in London or in Scotland. The poor chap has always been sickly, quiet and – it pains me to say it – a little slow-witted. He’d been Catherine’s first child, born when she was only seventeen, and for years I have suspected that something odd might have occurred during that pregnancy.

  ‘Oh, thank you for asking,’ she replied, for her husband’s mouth was too full of food. ‘Poor Oliver caught a nasty summer cold and he is only just recovering. He could have made the trip, I suppose, but I didn’t know in which dire conditions you might receive us, so I’d rather not risk a relapse.’

  Layton came to me with a little tray and I realized I had squeezed my bread roll into scraps. ‘More wine?’ I offered, brushing the crumbs off my hands.

  ‘Do not take this the wrong way, Ian,’ Catherine said, stretching her glass to have it refilled with my best Merlot. ‘But you still work at that dreadful place, interacting with thieves, prostitutes, policemen and the rest of the criminal classes.’ She looked around. ‘It is a decent little lodge you have secured here, but there is only so much you can stretch what God has given to this side of the land.

  ‘Which reminds me,’ she added, looking directly at Elgie. ‘Once this little Macbeth charade is over, I am taking my son back to London.’

  Elgie dropped his cutlery and I nearly crushed my glass in my hand. Catherine, however, took a demure sip as innocently as if she’d but remarked on the shape of a cloud.

  I put my drink carefully back on the table. ‘Father,’ I said in my most composed attitude, ‘do you have anything to say?’

 
; He only chuckled. ‘Two of my sons in Edin-bloody-burgh, or one of my sons in Edin-bloody-burgh? Do I need say more?’

  Elgie looked livid but I discreetly raised a hand.

  ‘Perhaps this is something we should discuss after the play,’ I said, for once acting as peacemaker. ‘We do not want these paltry domestics affecting your performance, Elgie.’

  He barely managed to compose himself, but Catherine was not done.

  ‘Well, it is not a very discerning audience you’ll be playing for, is it? Provincial theatre. And mucky Terryphiles for that matter! I doubt people will be much concerned with the music when Ellen Terry appears wearing an indecent cleavage.’

  Elgie could not stand his mother’s bluntness any more. He sprang upwards, hitting the table and making every glass clatter, and then he stormed out of the room as heated as a whistling steam engine.

  I stared daggers at my father and his wife, who resumed their dinner as if nothing had happened.

  ‘What?’ said Father, noticing my reproachful stare.

  I drew in a deep breath. ‘What shall we talk about now? Elgie is usually the oil between the sharp Frey pegs.’ I received no reply, so I asked Layton to bring my dessert to my bedroom, and then swiftly left the table.

  I enjoyed pastry and coffee in the privacy of my chamber, and then managed to have a short nap before getting ready for the ball, for which I now thanked providence. That night I would not sleep at all.

  Fourth letter from the partially burned stack found at Calton Hill

  Middle paragraph smudged and barely readable. Hand much clearer towards the end. – I. P. Frey.

  My dear,

  It feels all so real now. Now that the wheel has begun to turn. Your inescapable end.

  Oh my darling, are you really sure you are going to a better place? Or will it be only the corruption and the maggots feasting on your flesh, staining the satin lining of an icy coffin?

  I cannot bear the thought, my dear. Before that happens, you must know, I will cut locks of your beautiful hair, and make bows, and deck all the knobs to all my doors, so that each time I walk into a room I shall think you might be there. And then, when I’m convinced you’ll not come back, when I’m resigned I’ll never see your face again, when even my stupor is not enough to deceive my senses … then I shall go to your grave, and dig out your bones, and pluck out all your teeth and make myself a necklace, and wear you until I too can join you there, in the quiet earth.